yesterday evening, she’d been overjoyed to report that the surgery her husband had undergone had proved so successful. Now, with care and a certain amount of luck, Julio de Montoya should have several more years of active life ahead of him. That was so long as nothing untoward happened to hinder his recovery.
Like that letter.
Enrique’s jaw compressed and, after smothering the lower half of his face with foam, he reached for his razor. Dammit, what did that—bruja—hope to achieve? And who was the child—if there really was a child—who had reputedly written the letter? No kin of his, he was sure. Or of Antonio’s. Cassandra had probably invented the whole thing. So what game was she playing?
Cassandra…
His hand slipped and the razor sliced into his cheek. Swearing as blood dripped onto the towel around his neck, Enrique groped for the tap. Then, after sluicing his face with cold water, he waited for the blood to congeal. What the hell was wrong with him, he wondered, letting that letter cause him such grief? He had to get a hold of himself, and damn quick. He’d done it ten years ago and he could do it now. He had no intention of letting that woman ruin his life. Again. She might be Antonio’s widow, but she had no connection with this family. None at all.
The cut had stopped bleeding by the time he’d dressed in loose cotton trousers and a black tee shirt. Deck shoes slipped easily onto his narrow feet and he used a comb on his still-damp hair. Then, despite his unwillingness to do so, he bent and picked up the letter and opened it once more.
It was only a short letter, written in a distinctly childish hand. Had Cassandra used her left hand to write it? It might explain the immature scrawl, the evident effort taken to form the letters. A child of nine could have written it, he supposed, but as he refused to accept its content he couldn’t accept its validity.
The temptation to tear the letter into shreds was appealing. He doubted if even Cassandra would have the nerve to write again, and once it was destroyed he could forget all about it.
But he couldn’t do it. Despite his suspicions, despite the fact that Antonio’s untimely death meant he had no nieces or nephews, a sick kind of curiosity demanded to know what was at the bottom of it.
Even the paper offended his sensibilities. A single sheet of lined notepaper, the kind a stenographer might use to take notes at a meeting, or, more likely, a sheet torn from a child’s notepad, just to reinforce the illusion of innocence.
Innocence!
His lips curled as he spread the page between his fingers and read again the message that had so angered him.
Dear Grandpa,
You don’t know me and Mum says you don’t want to but I don’t believe that. I’d like us to be friends and that’s why I’ve got Mum to bring me to Spain on holiday this year. We’re coming on June 12 and we’re staying in Punta del Lobo at the Pensión del Mar. I know it’s by the sea, but I don’t know if it’s a long way from Tuarega, but anyway you could come to see us. I’m sure Mum would like to see you whatever she says.
With love from your grandson, David de Montoya.
Enrique’s teeth clenched. How dared she call her child de Montoya? he thought savagely. If indeed there was a child, he reminded himself again. But, if so, he had to be some bastard born after Antonio was dead and buried. And Enrique knew—
But that was a path he had no intention of being drawn down. Whatever he knew or didn’t know about Cassandra was not in question here. His only concern was in ensuring that his father never saw the letter, never suffered the pain of knowing that once again Cassandra Scott—de Montoya, dammit—was trying to insinuate herself into his family.
His fingers curled about the cheap sheet of paper, screwing it into a tight ball in his palm. He didn’t want to look at it. He never wanted to see it again. But he had the feeling that, whatever he did, nothing would erase the memory of the words.
He aimed the ball of paper at his wastebin, and then dropped his arm again. If he left the letter there, someone might be curious enough to wonder what it was and unravel it. Unless he was prepared to tear it into pieces and put it into the lavatory, or set fire to it, he would have to dispose of it elsewhere.
Which was what he would do, he decided, neither of the other alternatives having much appeal to him. He refused to consider he might have any unacknowledged motive for hanging onto the missive. It was, after all, the only evidence he had that Cassandra had tried to reach his father.
Smoothing the letter out again, he opened a drawer in his bedside cabinet and slipped it between the pages of his missal. An ironic smile touched his lips at the incongruity of its resting place, but at least he was fairly sure that no one else was likely to find it there.
That still didn’t solve the problem of what he was going to do about it, he reflected later, after the maid had served him strong black coffee and warm brioche at a table set beneath the arching canopy of the colonnade. At this hour it was extremely pleasant eating breakfast outdoors, and normally this was the time of day when Enrique reviewed the work that had been done the previous day and consulted his managers’ reports of work in progress. As his father’s deputy—and in recent weeks the nominal head of the de Montoya corporation— Enrique took his responsibilities seriously. It was infuriating to think that this morning his thoughts were constantly bombarded by the knowledge that it was already June the fifteenth and Cassandra—and possibly her son—were only thirty miles away at Punta del Lobo.
Had the boy—if there was a boy—already found out how far it was from Punta del Lobo to Tuarega? Was it conceivable that Cassandra might go so far as to come to the estate?
Unable to sit still with such a prospect for company, Enrique picked up his coffee and walked restlessly across the courtyard to where a stone nymph cooled her heels in the waters of the fountain. He paused beside the stone basin and tried to calm his thoughts with the sight of the cream waterlilies that floated in the pool. The palacio circled three sides of this central courtyard, the fourth edged with purple azalea and scarlet oleander, whose mingled perfumes found little favour with him this morning. A warm breeze blew up from the valley, tumbling the drying strands of his thick hair over his forehead, and he thrust them back with impatient fingers.
Dammit, why now? he wondered, taking an absent mouthful of his coffee. After almost ten years, why choose this time to break her silence? Was it possible she’d read about his father’s illness? Did she think the old man might be more—approachable now, having been faced with his own mortality?
It was possible. Indeed, it was the only explanation that made any sense. Putting aside the unlikely premise that this boy, David de Montoya—he baulked at using that name—had written the letter, what else did he have? So what did he intend to do about it?
Cassandra stood on the sand, shading her eyes as she watched her son playing in the water. He’d made friends with a German boy who was also staying at the pensión and they’d spent the past couple of hours competing with each other on the plastic floats they’d hired from the beach attendant. This cove was the ideal place for children, and, although she’d had misgivings when she’d booked the holiday, there was no doubt that they were both benefiting from the break.
But it was already nearly five o’clock and Cassandra could feel her shoulders prickling in spite of the layering of sun-screen she’d applied and reapplied during the afternoon. Three days was not long enough to become completely acclimatised, and, although her skin wasn’t as sensitive now as it had been when they’d arrived, she knew better than to risk getting burned.
